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Anchor investor
An institution that commits to a large portion of the IPO in exchange for founder shares.
Anchors buy a meaningful slice of the offering and receive a small allocation of founder shares from the sponsor as an inducement.
Their presence is disclosed in the prospectus and signals that the sponsor needed help filling the book, or that a sophisticated investor was willing to underwrite the team.
Related terms
See the term in the wild: the screener shows trust size, per-share value and deadlines for every U.S. SPAC, and each profile links to the filings the numbers came from.
Definitions describe market practice and are not investment, legal or tax advice.